FROM time to time here in Cannes, you will fall into conversation with a veteran of film festivals past, hardened by 20 or 30 May fortnights of Bandol and foie gras, black-tie screenings and late-night yacht parties, who will conjure memories of bygone glory and outrage — of "Rosetta" in 1999, of "The Tin Drum" and "Apocalypse Now" in 1979, or even of the storied Cannes of 1968, when a group of French directors held down the curtain of the old Palais des Festivals at the start of a screening and brought the whole thing to a grinding halt.

Those of us who missed out on those heady times will return from this year's festival to burnish and propagate a legend of our own. In some future year, lingering over a midnight dinner as the well-dressed crowds rush by, we will thoughtfully swirl the dregs in our wine glasses and remember 2003, the year of "Brown Bunny" and "Les Côtelettes," the year that the most talked-about films were the ones in other festivals, the year that every critic became an incarnation of the Comic Book Guy on "The Simpsons," pronouncing the 56th edition of Cannes the worst festival ever.